It’s a rather innocuous greeting, which is met with a fairly thoughtful and telling response.

In fact, asking American musician and activist Sandra Izsadore how things are in her world couldn’t have been a better introduction to her life and career for the past four decades.

“Good,” the Los Angeles-based artist says as something of a prelude to her full response.

“But when you grow up thinking that you’re going to make a difference in the world and discover how naïve you are, or were. When you’re young you think — I don’t know what page I was on but I thought, ‘Oh, all we have to do is make change through music.’ And what I’m seeing, here in America, North America, it’s just, I don’t know, weird …

“We’ve come a long way, but at the same time, we’ve also become very violent. And I don’t get it. I really don’t.”

Again, it offers a little insight into her life and what brought her to this point.

Izsadore is known as the Mother of Afrobeat. It’s a moniker and honour, really, that she earned through her relationship with the late, great Fela Kuti — as his lover, as his singer (her vocals on the classic Upside Down are the only female appearing on any of his recorded work) and, more importantly, as his mentor.

She met the Nigerian musician when he and his band were in L.A. in 1969.

Izsadore, at that time Sandra Smith, was heavily involved with the civil rights movement, was connected with the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam, and was even then fighting for the cause that she now admits needs to go much further

“Let’s just call the cause being a humanitarian,” she says. “Just growing up as a humanitarian and wanting positive change for everyone.”

She imparted her own wisdom and her beliefs upon Kuti, helping to lead him down his path of path of heightened political awareness when he returned home to Nigeria — she joining him there for a few memorable months — and proceeded to become the legend he now is.

In fact, the afrobeat pioneer spends an entire chapter speaking about her influence on him in Carlos Moore’s biography called Fela: This Bitch of a Life, stating: “Sandra gave me the education I wanted to know. She was the one who opened my eyes … Nothing about my life is complete without her.”

Which makes you wonder why Izsadore now considers it naïve to believe you can change the world through music.

“Well when I think about it, when I think about all of the greats that have gone before me, music could change the world if people would listen,” she says citing Michael Jackson’s Man In the Mirror and Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On as prime examples of messages worth hearing.

“The problem is people don’t listen, they’re not listening to the lyrical content of what’s being said.

“And then look at all of the things that Fela said in Nigeria and look at the state it’s in today.”

Izsadore still has a strong connection with both the man and his country. Her latest record is actually named after the nation — one to where she travels quite regularly — and features among its 15 tracks a song about Fela, himself.

She’s also currently at work on her own version of Kuti’s almost 25-minute epic Big Blind Country, or BBC — a song he never recorded in a studio before his death in 1997, although various live versions exist.

Izsadore, perhaps alluding to her original thoughts about the state of her own nation, thinks that the timing is right for her to release her own take on it.

“Things that Fela was talking about in his country, in Nigeria, that I thought was exclusively there is now on America’s doorstep,” she says and laughs.

“It’s so heavy on America’s doorstep, I’m thinking, ‘Well where can I go?’ And Canada looks real good.”

The artist will finally get her chance to check the place out firsthand.

She’ll be coming to the country for the very first time as the headliner for the 25th anniversary of Calgary’s annual celebration of African culture, Afrikadey!, which is taking place Saturday at Prince’s Island.

Izsadore will be bringing to the event a more theatrical production, which is called The Fela Experience and also features Duane Richmond, who starred as Kuti in the Tony-winning Broadway musical Fela!

They’ll tell the story of the man and his music, with Izsadore delivering her own material and, more importantly, continuing her devotion to the cause.

“We want to deliver a message through music,” she says.

So does that mean she’s still naïve?

“I did a song called Trying for Change,” she says and laughs again. “I’m still trying.”

Sandra Izsadore performs Saturday as part of Afrikadey! on Prince’s Island.

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